Criminal Procedural Law

the branch of law that regulates the activities of agencies of inquiry and preliminary investigation, the procurator, and the court in initiating, investigating, and deciding criminal cases. Criminal procedural law establishes the order and content of criminal court procedure and regulates the legal relations that arise in connection with such procedure, as well as the rights and obligations of agencies conducting criminal proceedings and those of participants in the proceedings. Criminal procedural law is closely connected with criminal law. Within prescribed limits it also makes use of rules of civil law (for instance, a civil claim in a criminal proceeding), family law (such as participation of legal representatives in a proceeding), and administrative law (for example, the application of sanctions against violators of procedural order).

The fundamentals of Soviet criminal procedural law are set forth in the Basic Principles of Criminal Court Procedure of the USSR and the Union Republics, promulgated in 1958. They forbid the assignment of criminal responsibility other than on the basis of and by the procedure prescribed by law, preserve the inviolability of person, and require that judicial proceedings be conducted only by a court and on the basis of equality of all citizens before the law and the court. They guarantee the independence of the judiciary and its subordination only to law, participation of people’s assessors in proceedings, open court sessions and the right to defense, and complete and objective investigation of the circumstances of the case. They also prohibit the soliciting of testimony by force or threats.

The Basic Principles of Criminal Court Procedure and the codes of criminal procedure of the Union republics, adopted on the basis of the Basic Principles, regulate in detail questions concerning proof in a criminal case; the participants in proceedings, the rights and obligations of the participants, and the guarantees of such rights and obligations; and supervision of the execution of law in the criminal process, of the uniformity, order, and content of procedural stages, and of the actions and decisions of bodies conducting the criminal proceedings.